The Knight's Return
by Vievin
Summary: Set after the season 1 finale. Due to the injuries sustained during the battle for Mytho and his Love Shard, Fakir loses his memories. After a while, he recalls things, but the memories aren't his... but of the knight who was rent in two by the Raven. Fakir-centric, loosely follows season two.
1. Beginning

So, two of my favourite hobbies is writing fanfiction which tortures my favorite characters and fangirling after hawt, but troubled characters. Guess what happens if the two are combined! So one thing I've been wondering about is how did Fakir get back onto the surface besides magic? The answer here is, he didn't! He falls into a Convenient Coma™ from being rescued from bleeding out and faux-drowning (the lake is still an illusion) like five minutes later than he could reasonably survive, and then loses all his memories. Throughout the entire fanfiction, much and much liberties will be taken with medicine-related stuff, just a warning. This is my-style Canon Divergence, meaning that early season 2 events will happen (Mytho getting ravenified and snatching girls left and right etc), but since a significant part of the story (I.e Fakir) has been altered, the end will play out differently.

So, without further ado, enjoy!

* * *

Princess Tutu didn't think she could get tired in her ballerina form, but here she was, panting from the intense battle to win over the heart shard of Mytho. But it had paid off, all her tears and earnest dance, the prince was safe and had regained the Heart Shard of Love. When Princess Kraehe had run off, the illusion of the lake and the island in the middle dissipated, revealing the barren cave and where the lake's bottom was...

"Fakir!" Ahiru cried out and rushed to the slumped figure, Mytho at her heel. The boy was laying on his back, eyes closed, unmoving. To the pair's horror, he didn't even appear to be breathing, his skin was deathly pale and beneath him was an ever-growing pool of blood, mixed with water that was, curiously, drenching him only and none of his surroundings.

"Fakir... he can't be..." Mytho knelt down beside him, touching his neck. The dark-haired teen twitched slightly from the prince's touch, and they both sighed in relief. He wasn't dead after all.

"We need to get him out of here" Ahiru said. Mytho nodded in agreement.

"Let's bring him to Charon's house. He's Fakir's foster father after all." He picked up the unconscious teen, cradling him in his arms. Fakir let out a moan of pain at the motion and his eyes fluttered open for a moment, unseeing.

"Vergebt mir, mein Prinz... Ich habe Sie erneute... enttäuscht..."⁽¹⁾ he murmured in a faint voice. Mytho touched his hand, in his eyes a thousand-yard stare.

"Du hast mich nicht enttäuscht, mein Ritter,"⁽²⁾ he said softly, a wistful half-smile on his face. The knight let out a relieved sigh as his eyes closed and he passed out again. Mytho blinked as his eyes focused again on the dark-haired teen, he pulled his hand away slowly, as if in a daze.

"What was that?" Tutu asked, slightly weirded out. She didn't understand the language and she was worried about Fakir who was now unresponsive, hanging limply in the other young man's arms. Mytho looked at her, surprised.

"What was what?" _He doesn't remember...?_ The red-haired ballerina sighed.

"Forget it. Let's hurry up." The rest of the walk to Charon was spent in silence. Edel was gone by the time they got up. Tutu fixed her gaze on the road, occasionally glancing at Mytho, who carried the dark-haired teen solemnly, staring straight ahead. _Hang on, Fakir... just a little bit..._ Tutu prayed in herself as they arrived to the smith's house. They knocked a few times with no avail, and the ballerina was considering just breaking the door down, damn the consequences, when Charon showed up, sleepily glaring at the trio.

"Who is that in this-," he cut himself off when he saw the two teens and Fakir, who was pale as a wall and drenched in blood and water. "What happened? Never mind, let's talk about that later. Hurry, get inside!" Once in the house, Charon took over quickly. He undressed and bandaged the injured teen, careful not to cause him unnecessary pain, but Fakir was completely unresponsive, still barely breathing. He was laid in the bed of his old room, freshly bandaged and cleaned, and that's when Charon looked at Tutu and Mytho for the first time. Their clothes and hands were soaked in blood, and they both looked exhausted and frightened. It was an odd sight on the kind and fearless ballerina, and the formerly (literally) emotionless prince.

"What happened?" he asked softly, but his tone made Tutu shudder. Mytho spoke up, looking into the man's eyes.

"He fought Kraehe's ravens," he said in an even tone. "When I was going to shatter my heart shard of love, he shattered my sword with his own, but after that, he fell..." The prince looked away in a twinge of sorrow and guilt. "We found him like this. I'm sorry."

Charon looked at the unconscious teen, brows furrowed. "That explains a lot." _He followed his oath to the end. I hope he didn't regret it... He always took protecting the prince seriously, even at his own expense. And he complains all the time that Mytho has no self-preservation skills._ Then he remembered something odd. "Wait, why was he sopping wet then?"

"We fought that battle on a lake," Tutu chimed in. "Rue-cha... Princess Kraehe tricked him into going on its surface before she launched a sneak attack to drown him. But then again, the lake was an illusion, so I don't think he was _actually_ drowning..." she trailed off. "It was weird. But in the end, we defeated Princess Kraehe," she added with a smile. "I'm sure it will turn out alright." Charon, despite his worries, managed to return it. Then he looked at the clock and frowned.

"It's late. Mytho, you should go back to your dorm... Erm, after you have changed. As for you, Princess Tutu..." _Do magical ballerinas even sleep? Or do they just pop into existence when needed?_ The girl gave a curtsy.

"I have somewhere else to be. Don't worry about me. Until next time." She left without another word. Mytho also bid his farewell after changing into some of Fakir's old clothes, leaving the smith alone with the unconscious teen. He sighed.

"I used to regret I taught you about The Prince and the Raven, that I put the responsibility of the Knight on your shoulders. That regret is gone now..." With a faint smile, he caressed his foster son't hair, although Fakir didn't react. "I'm proud of you."

The teen didn't stir until late afternoon of the next day. He was floating in a black haze. He didn't feel tired or sore, he felt warm and comfortable. However, the bliss couldn't last long. The first sensation that returned was pain. His entire body ached, his right shoulder was the worst, but his right arm and abdomen were probably injured as well. However, when he tried to recall what happened, he found nothing. Not of the previous day, or the one before it. He couldn't remember anything. Slightly panicked, he shifted and a jolt of agony ripped through his body from his shoulder wound. He groaned in pain and slowly managed to crack his eyes open, although it drained most of his strength. Gradually a middle-aged man's face swam into focus , hovering over him.

"Fakir?" he inquired quietly, the teen furrowed his brows. Was that meant for him? He opened his mouth to greet the oddly familiar-feeling man, but words flowed out of his mouth that he didn't even understand. He cringed at how tired and painful he sounded.

"Der Rabe riss mich in Zwei... aber ich lebe noch... warum?"⁽³⁾

* * *

As for the German pieces, I decided that whenever the knight and the Prince speak out of Fakir and Mytho, it will be in German because why not? It's fun.

Disclaimer: Princess Tutu, all its characters and the first season's plot all belongs to Ikuko Itoh. I don't make any money out of this (who would pay to read some shitty fanfic even lol). If anything changes, I'll inform, but until then no disclaimers. Repeating them every chapter is just annoying.

Translations:

⁽¹⁾ "Forgive me, my Prince... I once again... have failed you...

⁽²⁾ "You have not failed me, my knight"

⁽³⁾ "The raven tore me into two... but I'm still alive... why?"


	2. Awakening

To your luck, I already have like half the next chapter typed out and just need to edit. To your unluck, I'm sick as hell and can't be bothered to edit the next chapter because it has a hella lot of contradictions, and I have to really watch what I'm writing. Also to your unluck, I'm obsessed with Rick and Morty which is like the opposite of Princess Tutu. The problem with tightly contained stories like Princess Tutu is that it's hard to break continuity or mess up. Or write fanfictions for, for that matter. Yey. I guess it's about time to tell you that I'm really bad with actually finishing stuff.

So, without further ado, enjoy!

* * *

"Der Rabe riss mich in Zwei... aber ich lebe noch... Warum?"

As the teen slowly came to his senses, he saw an older figure stumbling backwards in surprise. Huh...? Half-minded to sit up he shifted, but suddenly white-hot pain shot through his shoulder, torso and lungs. He gasped and fell back to the pillows, his entire body aching now. The man hovered above him, as the young knight studied his face for a moment, he could've sworn he knew him, but his mind returned nothing. Nothing on the previous day, or the one before... He almost panicked. He had no memories. Who was he? Who was him? As if on cue, the older man spoke.

"Don't push yourself, Fakir. You'll end up worsening your injury." Fakir? Was that his name?

"Where am I?" he finally managed hoarsely. It felt like his mouth was filled with sand. The man looked at him, concerned.

"It's your old room. You used to live here for years until you moved into the Academy's dorms... don't you remember?" He stared ahead and slowly shook his head, then tried to sit up again. Gritting his teeth at the new surge of agony, this time he was successful. He looked around, still slightly dazed from the exertion.

"I... I don't remember anything" he admitted, staring at his lap. "Just... nothing." The man frowned as he looked at Fakir.

"You don't remember? You mean, you have amnesia?" The teen sighed.

"I guess so." The man shrugged, although his worried expression betrayed his calm.

"You almost died, so this should be the least of your worries. I'm sure the memories will come back sooner or later. You should just rest some now." This is sound advice, Fakir thought. He had only been awake for a couple minutes and he was struggling to stay awake. He leaned back into his pillows and his eyes closed automatically. Yet, he remembered something and called out, half-asleep:

"And how can I call you? Tell me your name." The last thing he heard before drifting off was the smith's answer:

"Call me 'father'."

Charon was too agitated to sleep, even hours after his brief conversation with his foster son. Despite what he said, he didn't believe getting amnesia from blood loss was a thing. However, Princess Tutu had said he was drowning... in an illusionary lake. The red-haired ballerina was right, it was weird. Can not-quite-drowning cause brain damage? But Fakir was acting mostly normal...

He stopped abruptly - he hadn't even noticed he was pacing back and forth - as he remembered what Fakir had said. He didn't understand most of it, something about ravens maybe? However, what really unsettled him was that he said it in the story's language. The teen never learnt it, he had made sure of it. With a start, Charon headed towards his personal library where he had hidden his dictionary.

It was old and partially burnt, some pages were stained with what he hoped wasn't blood, but it was usable. He had gotten it from a distant relative of Fakir's who claimed to be of the bloodline of Drosselmeyer himself, but he had never really thought much of it until the boy had found the Prince of the story. Now, he was grateful he hadn't thrown it out. Hesitantly flipping the pages and trying to match pronunciations to the weird letters, sentence structures to the order of words, until he put it together and just stared at the dictionary in shock.

"The Raven tore me in two... but I'm still alive... why?"

True, The gravest injury the ravens dealt to him was the gash on his shoulder, on the exact place where the Knight of the original story was killed by the Raven, and where the young man's birthmark was. It was an exaggeration that he was torn in two, but it was a life-threatening injury. Just what was happening? It was driving Charon insane. Suddenly he stopped - he had started pacing back and forth, again - and frowned, staring at the floor. It was the thing that unsettled him the second most.

While saying that, Fakir's eyes were sky blue instead of forest green.


End file.
